[nextos]

It is difficult. I think the key is that Spain has a large corps of civil engineers working for the government. They plan all projects with great detail and then oversee their execution.

Agile regulations against NIMBYism and a world-class civil engineering industry with HQs in Madrid also help.

A good analogy is to ask what would need to be true for Madrid to replicate the AI hub in SF? Great VC, top engineers, certain risk-taking mentality, etc.

So, it's not easy. The environment that creates a fabric for radical innovation is quite different from a statist mentality, although hopefully, both are not mutually exclusive.

[rayiner]

The sibling comments explain the regulatory differences. But another factor is that competent engineers and executives have much lower opportunity costs to work for the government in Spain because private sector opportunities are far less lucrative than in the U.S.

An ironic downside of America’s leadership in tech and finance is that there is tremendous brain drain out of the public sector.

[saguntum]

> I think the key is that Spain has a large corps of civil engineers working for the government.

I agree with this. In general jobs with the government are seen as high quality jobs from my understanding. Another commenter mentioned that the high salaries in the private sector in the US brain drain away from the US public sector. In Spain salaries are much lower, so this is perhaps less of an issue in certain fields.